and drawn, like an old person's. But the little persistent desire
to laugh off everything still flickered about the corners of her lips.

"Yes," she said, "I was in the sleeper, and the two people right in
front of me were killed; and it took almost three hours, I think,
before they got any of us out. And while I was lying there in the
darkness and mess and everything, I cried--and cried--and cried. It
wasn't nice of me, I know, nor brave, nor anything, but I couldn't
seem to help it--underneath all that pile of broken seats and racks
and beams and things.

"And pretty soon a man's voice--just a voice, no face or anything, you
know, but just a voice from somewhere quite near me, spoke right out
and said: 'What in creation are you crying so about? Are you awfully
hurt?' And I said--though I didn't mean to say it at all, but it came
right out--'N-o, I don't think I'm hurt, but I don't like having all
these seats and windows piled on top of me,' and I began crying all
over again. 'But no one else is crying,' reproached the Voice.--'And
there's a perfectly good reason why not,' I said. 'They're all
dead!'--'O--h,' said the Voice, and then I began to cry harder than
ever, and principally this time, I think, I cried because the horrid,
old red plush cushions smelt so stale and dusty, jammed against my
nose.

"And then after a long time the Voice spoke again and it said, 'If
I'll sing you a little song, will you stop crying?' And I said, 'N-o,
I don't think I could!' And after a long time the Voice spoke again,
and it said, 'Well, if I'll tell you a story will you stop crying?'
And I considered it a long time, and finally I said, 'Well, if you'll
tell me a perfectly true story--a story that's never, never been told
to any one before--_I'll try and stop!_'

"So the Voice gave a funny little laugh almost like a woman's
hysterics, and I stopped crying right off short, and the Voice said,
just a little bit mockingly: 'But the only perfectly true story that I
know--the only story that's never--never been told to anybody before
is the story of my life.' 'Very well, then,' I said, 'tell me that! Of
course I was planning to live to be very old and learn a little about
a great many things; but as long as apparently I'm not going to live
to even reach my twenty-ninth birthday--to-morrow--you don't know how
unutterably it would comfort me to think that at least I knew
_everything_ about some one thing!'

"And then the Voice choked